Puzzle pieces!

I don't know how it is that I missed these cute and versatile images from Biblical Impressions for so long, but once I saw them I knew they had wonderful potential for fun cards! There is a small puzzle-piece border stamp, and a trio stamp of slightly larger pieces; scroll about 2/3 down the miscellaneous page to see/order the images.

For this first card, I used the cuttlebug puzzle template, making white, yellow, blue, pink, and white puzzle sets. Then I assembled the puzzle, and inked the stamp with versamark ink. Then I separated the pieces and used cotton swabs to gently apply colored chalks to the individual pieces. I had hoped to avoid smearing the chalk on the white puzzle pieces, but I couldn't manage to do so. Perhaps if I had used a brush instead of cotton swabs it would have worked out better. For the card, I embossed with white embossing powder.



For the second card, I stamped the background with the floral image with versamark. Then with black ink, stamped it several times, and colored each image slightly differently. Here's one I did not use, just to show you the original image. It's about 2.5" in length:



Then I stamped the larger puzzle pieces on top of the floral images, yielding about five pieces from each. After cutting out and attaching to panel, I stamped thinking of you in the corner.



I also wanted to make a more "elegant" card with the smaller puzzle pieces, using H20's and gold embossing to to create the effect. I visualized them going down just the long side of a cream colored card. But although I really like how they turned out, well, it just seemed odd to have elegant puzzle pieces! So I went for a cute and glitzy birthday. However, I was really, really tired while coloring the Happy Birthday image, and kept making mistakes. I was doing it on "borrowed time," so I couldn't take time to remake it. So, once again, just to give you an idea of how the pieces make a nice border, I threw the card together without gluing anything down and placed an acrylic mount over it to hold it in place. I do this all the time when laying out card possibilites.



Hope you have been inspired!

Super Simple Scripture Card

I love to make backgrounds from my stamps, but sometimes it's really handy to have printed papers; it's a bit challenging to focus on cardmaking at the moment. Our seventeen year old niece, Meredith, just went to be with the Lord after a sudden diagnosis of brain cancer last month. My prayers for the family (in addition to her parents, she had nine younger siblings) are, as with this blessing of Aaron, priest and brother of Moses, for the Lord to bless and keep them, to make His face shine upon them, and give them continuing peace.

Eureka blog hop!

Welcome to the last stop on the March Eureka Blog Hop! If you are following the Hop, you should have arrived here from Roxie at "Paper Scraper"! If not, but you would like to start at the beginning, hop over to QKR Stampede for the entire hop!

I was having a lot of fun with making this card ... until interrupted for a family emergency that meant flying out of town very last minute, and not arriving back for four days! So, I never got to quite finish "playing" with my ideas. Here is the final card:



I colored the cross with watercolor pencils, then used brilliance teardrop shaped ink pads to make little dashes of color. I made sure the panel was very dry by using my heat gun before I stamped the mosaic and embossed with clear powder. After it cooled, I inked with a light gold Brilliance ink pad, teardrop size, smearing and tapping. Warning: this will use up a lot of ink, but is the easiest way to ensure the ink gets into all the cracks. Somehow, I made several cross panels before actually taking a look at what Eureka text stamps I owned, incorrectly remembering the size and shape of the He is Risen image. So,I'm not completely satisfied with the card; I would have preferred a smaller text. So, the gold does not quite match the gold over the cross; I just wanted to see how the text would look edged in gold, then decided to use it after all, but thought adding more ink might be too much.

Anyway, just for fun, I've put a few more pictures of panels just to give some ideas of what else could be done with these stamps. Be sure to look at Eureka's Easter pages for different text stamps, etc!

This is the original panel I started with, using the Luke 24 backgrounder.



By using such a light color, it ended up just seeming to mix in with the tiles. It did not look bad, but was not what I wanted. So, I stamped the Luke 24:5,6 image embossed in gold. I elected not to use it, but layed it out for viewing. By the way, as nothing is glued together here, I used a large acrylic mount to hold everything in place. A tad blurry, but it works much better than just laying pieces of cardstock on top of each other, and keeps everything in the position one wants.



My husband wanted me to try using a "black gold" ink on the mosaic, so that's what's on this one. I think we both thought it would look more "black." For this one, I embossed on a transparency. I think both this one and the one above would have been better stamped in either black or purple, but at this point, I was out of time for more stamping.



Lastly, I wanted to see what the Luke backgrounder would look like stamped in black over the whole image. It is Resurrection time, after all, so I didn't want the cross the main focus, so I didn't mind covering it. If I were to finish this card, I might do something interesting with the corners, or add ribbon, etc, but would not add further text.



Thank you for stopping by!

For Lo, the Winter is Past...

Welcome to the next stop on the Biblical Impressions blog hop! If you are arriving here from Jessica B.'s blog, then you are at the right place! If not, then head to the QKR Stampede blog for a complete hop order. This month’s theme is SPRING!

The top card better reflects (pun intended!) the clarity of the text, but the lower pictures (sans glare) is a more accurate image of the card.

I love this scripture from Song of Songs, which I embossed in gold on a transparency; it suits a literal interpretation as nicely as a literal one. I made this card in a hurry; we received an emergency phone call that meant an unplanned trip 8 hours out of town with one day's notice, so in my hurry to complete a card in case I didn't return on time to make one (and we didn't, just arrived in time to finish writing the post for this card), I used a background stamp that is not from Biblical Impressions, but one of it's sister companies, Eureka. The stamp is the fern background stamp, and I stamped it several times to cover the background panel.






Thank you for stopping by, now it's on to Jessica S. for the next stop on our hop, while I go see if the kettle on the stove that I forgot was on (until I heard an unhealthy "pop" sound from the kitchen) has been burnt through!

Tea Time

A friend at church this Sunday told me she is making something for all the women at our ladies' spring banquet this year that involves something with teacups, and will include two teabags to encourage fellowship. She asked if I had any text stamps that might go along with it. How funny ... I had just made this card Saturday!

The teapot image comes in two sizes; I used the smaller image as a backgrounder for the Patsy Clairmont text.

My youngest daughter, Susie, loves taking pictures. This is one of our front yard, with various footprints of the local wildlife, particularly deer. We have a few ancient apple trees just outside the boundary of this photo that they love to eat from, and they have even gleaned from the bird feeder a two yards from our kitchen window! I made this card for my son, Stephen, overseas with the Navy in Sicily. I thought it would be nice to have the combination of a photo by his younger sister and a card by his mom! Unfortunately, his birthday was yesterday and I forgot about mailing it out until this morning, sigh...

I originally wanted the deer image to be a "ghosty" image on the card. The result was disappointing, though I'm not 100% sure it's because the idea was flawed as that the execution of it; the footprints going through the face definitely warp the image.



I first made another copy of the image on separate piece of cardstock to put over the image, but then decided to print another photo and stamp it in brown. I then used a smaller Happy Birthday text than I had planned. I chalked in the image (not very visible here) to make the deer stand out a little more, without fully covering the snow; I still wanted at least a little of the "ghost" look originally sought for.